Stephen Moore
Actor
THE ACTOR Stephen Moore, who has died at 81, was one of television’s most familiar father figures – to Adrian Mole and Harry Enfield, among others – and a beloved presence among science fiction aficionados, as the voice of Marvin the paranoid android in the radio and TV adaptations of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
But despite his undoubted popularity with the producers of comedy shows, he was also an accomplished stage performer, with a range that spanned Broadway to the Royal Shakespeare Company.
At the National Theatre, he was in productions as diverse as David Hare’s Plenty, which dealt with British post-war disillusion, and Alan Ayckbourn’s Bedroom Farce, whose title needed no explanation.
He also played alongside Ralph Richardson, whom he admired, in the John Osborne play West of Suez in the West End.
In complete contrast, he recorded the song Reasons to be Miserable and another cult single in character as Marvin.
But it was for his TV work that he was best known. He was father to Sue Townsend’s teenage diarist in Thames TV’s 1985 adaptation of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ and its sequel, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole. On the BBC he took on a similar role to the truculent teenager Kevin in Harry Enfield and Chums, and to Harmony Parker in Dick King-Smith’s children’s series, The Queen’s Nose.
His turn on stage as an inspiring teacher in the 2007 revival of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys cast him in similar vein.
Moore was born in December 1937 in Brixton, south London, to Stanley, a solicitor, and Mary Elisabeth (née Bruce-Anderson). He attended Archbishop Tenison’s Grammar School at Kennington Oval and then trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, winning the Olivier Medal.
His professional debut came in 1959 in Arthus Miller’s A View from the Bridge, in Windsor. Long engagements with the National Theatre and the RSC followed.
He would go on to appear as Col Pickering in Trevor Nunn’s revival of My Fair Lady in 2003, but it was not his first exposure to musicals. In 1976, he had been cast as Julie Covington’s leftish husband, in Howard Schuman’s Rock Follies, an unusual attempt by Thames TV do musical theatre on the small screen.
He married four times, with the first three ending in divorce. His fourth wife, Noelyn George, died in 2010. He is survived by a son and four daughters.